EL PASO -- Convicted serial killer David Leonard Wood led a troubled life marked by anger, frustration and perhaps even a learning disability.

Wood, 52, has been on death row for 17 years. The state plans to execute him Aug. 20 for the 1987 murders of six girls and young women in the desert outside El Paso. Police also suspected Wood in the disappearances of three other teenage girls, all of whom vanished in 1987.

His father, Leo Wood, who worked at the El Paso Electric Co., said in 1992 that Wood had a rough and unstable childhood. He said Wood's mother was mentally ill, and that he divorced her after a stormy 24-year marriage.

During times the parents were separated, David Wood and his siblings stayed in foster homes. The senior Wood described his son as a hyperactive child who required medications.

David Wood has maintained his innocence in the murders, but declined requests to be interviewed.

While with his parents, Wood lived in a middle-class neighborhood in Northeast El Paso. For a brief time, he also lived in Chaparral, N.M. All but one of his victims had ties to those two areas.

Wood told a court-appointed psychiatrist in the 1980s that he became sexually active when he was 12, and began using alcohol and marijuana in his early adolescent years.

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He dropped out of Parkland High School in the ninth grade. Wood tried to join the military, but was rejected.

Another psychiatrist, this one from Stanford University, testified at Wood's 1992 capital murder trial. He said Wood had a below-average IQ of 68.

Police, though, said Wood was a cunning predator and a longtime lawbreaker before his crimes escalated to murder.

Wood served more than two years in prison, from April 1977 to December 1979, after being convicted of indecency with a child.

Soon after his parole, he was in trouble again, this time charged with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old and a 19-year-old. The attacks occurred eight days apart, in March 1980. Wood knew the older teenager but the other girl was a stranger.

A psychiatrist's report after the two sexual assaults said Wood "sees relationships as conflicted. It appears that there is considerable hostility as well as paranoid insecurity."

Convicted of the two sex crimes, he served another seven years in prison.

The state paroled Wood for the second time in January 1987. His return to El Paso coincided with a crime rampage in the city.

Teenage girls and young women, nine in all, began disappearing, mostly in Northeast El Paso. Six bodies turned up in the desert.

Police also suspected Wood in the disappearances of Marjorie Knox, 14, Cheryl Vasquez-Dismukes, 19, and Melissa Alaniz, 14. All three vanished in 1987.

Wood roamed Northeast El Paso in a truck or on a red Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He had several tattoos, wore his hair long and packed a buck knife.

Roy Hazelwood, an FBI profiler whom El Paso police consulted in 1989, said the killer buried the bodies near where he lived. At the time, the profiler did not know Wood was a suspect.

Hazelwood said the killer projected a "macho" image to mask feelings of inadequacy. Wood often kept company with teenage girls.

Pete Vasquez is the brother of one of the missing woman, Cheryl Vasquez-Dismukes. Vasquez said Wood attended the Crossroads Church, which had an outreach ministry for teenagers.

"I don't recall specifically meeting David Wood, but a week or two after I started attending, the group was asked to pray for him because he had been arrested," Vasquez said.

Now, he says, he hopes Wood will disclose any details about his missing sister in the 10 days before the state executes him.

Wood did not respond to requests asking him if he knew what happened to Vasquez-Dismukes or the other missing girls, Alaniz and Knox.

Wood worked in a furniture store and did odd jobs, such as yard work for real estate companies. His friends said he frequented bars and nightclubs along Dyer, Alameda and Montana, and was especially fond of clubs that featured topless dancers.

His former cellmates said Wood claimed he was a drug dealer, and that some of his victims sold drugs for him.

Though medical professionals described Wood as dysfunctional, others say his physical appearance provided him with a robust social life.

"Girls loved him and he loved girls," said Erika Dismukes, mother-in-law of Cheryl Vasquez-Dismukes. "He was good-looking and women were attracted to him."

Wood lived with a girlfriend in 1987, while El Paso's murder count escalated. A dancer in clubs, she would eventually testify at his murder trial.

Another woman, a prostitute and drug addict, helped build the state's case against Wood. In 1987, she accused Wood of tying her to a tree and sexually assaulting her in the Northeast desert, between Dyer and McCombs. This gave police a way to take one of their prime suspects in the serial killings off the streets.

Found guilty of the sexual assault in March 1988, Wood was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

By then, Wood knew he was a suspect in the desert killings. He said he was a victim of false accusations.

"You're never going to see me say, 'Hey, I'm the guy,' for the simple fact of my pride. I'm not going to confess to something I didn't do," he said.

While incarcerated, he married Valerie Ann Trader in May 1988. He divorced her three years later. As far as anyone knows, Wood never fathered any children.

In 1990, Wood filed a lawsuit against El Paso police, accusing them of harassment and making him an "escape goat" because they could not solve the murders. His suit went nowhere, as he was tried and convicted of six of the murders.

During a recess in Wood's murder trial, Dolph Quijano, one of two defense lawyers, told the judge Wood needed a sedative because he was coming "unglued" over testimony he disagreed with.

But when Wood had the chance to take an oath and dispute what witnesses had said, he stayed silent, declining to testify.

Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6140.